A Place of Opportunity - America

A young woman named Emma Lazarus, whose own family fled persecution from Europe generations earlier, took up the cause of these new immigrants. Although she was a poet, she spent much of her time advocating for better health care and housing for the newcomers and inspired by what she saw and heard, she wrote down her thoughts and donated a piece of work to help pay for the construction of a new statue - the Statue of Liberty - which actually was funded in part by small donations from people across America.

"Years before the statue was built-years before it would be seen by throngs of immigrants craning their necks sky word at the end of long and brutal voyage, years before it would come to symbolize everything that we cherish -- she imaged what it could mean. She imagined that sight of a giant statue at the entry point of a great nation - but unlike the great monuments of the past, this would not signal an empire. Instead, it would signal one's arrival to a place of opportunity and refuge and freedom." President Obama.

She wrote,

"A mighty woman with a torch...
From her beaconhand
Glows world-wide welcome...
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!...
"Give me your tired, and your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to be free...
Send these, the homeless, tempest - tossed to me,
I will lift my hand beside the golden door!.."